1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to portable electronic apparatus.
2. Background Art
In electronic apparatus such as computers, various pointing devices have been used as input devices. A typical one of the pointing devices is, for example, a mouse that freely moves a cursor displayed on the display screen and performs a single or double clicks at the position of the cursor. Portable electronic apparatus have a “touch pad” or “touch screen” instead of the mouse (For example, Published Japanese Patent Application “H11-203046”, pages 3and 4, FIG. 4).
The touch pads and touch screens have only a function to specify a coordinate position. In other words, they only substitute for the cursor-moving function of the mouse. Therefore, for example, in order to scroll up or down the displayed picture, parts to be used exclusively for scrolling purposes (a ring-like part rotatable by a finger, so-called “wheel”) are needed to thereby increase the cost.
In the touch screen, the display can be damaged to thereby fail to provide a good visible picture.
A technique for adding a scrolling function to the existing touch pad by devising appropriate driver software have been considered. In this case, however, there are many problems with the user interface. Especially, when the portable electronic apparatus is held by both hands of the user, there still remains a problem of unhandiness as the pointing device.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a user interface m a portable electronic apparatus which is handy to the user in a state where the portable electronic apparatus is held by both hands of the user and does not hinder perusing the picture displayed on the display screen of the electronic apparatus.